A Blog about the walking activities of Mick & Gayle, from short strolls to Big Walks, interspersed with other random thoughts about things outdoor related.

The Road goes ever on and on; Down from the door where it began;Now far ahead the Road has gone; And I must follow, if I can;Pursuing it with eager feet; Until it joins some larger way;Where many paths and errands met; And whither then? I cannot say. [JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings]

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Thursday, 21 January 2010

27th Night

“They’ve still got their Christmas Tree up!” exclaimed Mick as we walked past towards the village yesterday afternoon.

“No!” I succinctly exclaimed in response.

Egged on by Mick we performed an about turn and nonchalantly passed the window in question twice more to verify this fact. I felt sure that if anyone was in that living room they would have no doubt what had made us walk past and look in three times in fifteen seconds, but what we had firmly established was that not only was there a Christmas tree, but it was all lit up.

It was curious that we were walking towards the village at all, given that we were under a mile from the end of our 7-mile canal circuit, and that home lay in the opposite direction. However, a few moments earlier, as we reached the junction where we would have turned left to go home, I had decided that a slightly longer route over the fields would be more pleasing, and that involved walking a few yards down the road first.

My plan had been to take the short route across the fields. Mick assumed that I meant the longer route and as he was slightly ahead of me, the longer route is the one we took.

It was fully dark by the time we reached the final field, which demonstrated that 2.30pm is not the best time of day to set out on a 9.5 mile walk if you want to be home before nightfall (although, in my defence, we had only set out on a 7 mile walk).

I couldn’t quite believe, upon arriving home, that we had completed the 9.5 miles in 2.5 hours, so we popped back out this afternoon to repeat the route (setting out an hour earlier, so we did make it home in daylight today). It took us five minutes longer today, although that’s probably because we stopped to chat to some little cows and some dwarf sheep.

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It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door [...] You step into the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.[Bilbo to Frodo, JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings]